When it comes to entertainment and the arts, there are countless
practitioners worthy of admiration, whether new faces or seasoned stars.
Like many people, I am obsessed with various forms of the arts, and
there are always personalities that I would give anything to meet and
experience in real life. Of course, the notion of ‘ordinary’ people
meeting established, successful entertainers is generally a somewhat
fanciful one – it actually makes my day if I catch a glimpse of famous
face out and about among we mere mortals or when my friend reports a
sighting of Stevie Wonder buying earphones at the Apple Shop, or Jude
Law queuing for a cupcake at the Primrose Bakery.

In
recent years, thanks to reality TV, singing competitions, the ubiquity
of social media and a general shift in the relationship between cultural
providers and consumers, Andy Warhol’s prediction about everyone
getting their fifteen minutes of fame has come good. While the
credentials and ‘star’ status of many of these new celebrities often
remains questionable, the fact remains that there is talent out there.

I
was actually looking for a way to get one of my favourite musicians to
play for a private event I was involved with hosting, and by looking
into the possibilities for meeting them I received an insight into an
entire realm I didn’t even know existed.

My
friend recommended that I try to get in touch with the band in question
via Twitter, which seemed like a reasonable first port of call. It’s
well known that this particular social media platform has become a kind
of online ‘leveller’, inexorably denuding the distance between star and
audience. The more I thought about it, and the more I glanced at
celebrity Twitter feeds, the more evident it became that a lot of stars
actually do interact directly with fans on Twitter. So why not take a
stab at it?

One reason is the ‘cold calling’
nature of contacting stars in this way. In the end that put me off.
Instead, I took what I considered a more professional approach and tried
to accomplish my goal with help from the MN2S booking agency
, which is specifically designed to put you in contact with people you
wouldn’t otherwise be able to talk to or book. I hadn’t realized that
agencies like this existed, but now I know it is actually possible to
secure big-time talent for smaller events.

Of
course, there will always be performers and celebrities who simply won’t
go for more intimate private events. But you might just find a person
or group within the arts, music, entertainment, sports and so on who
actually are receptive to requests such as appearing at private parties
or speaking engagements. So, the next time I’m involved with planning
an event like this, I have a whole new perspective on what kind of
talent I could bring in and what there presence could offer.